Did Spotify hire Alan Partridge to run its Netflix-style video push?

Competition Spotify’s strange lurch into creating TV shows grows even stranger.

Amongst the highlights of original content is a lurid series on how music stars died.

“From the PCP-fueled cannibalism of rapper Big Lurch to the murder-for-hire plot hatched by the singer of metal band As I Lay Dying, we’ll get the full story of how some of music’s biggest and most promising acts went tragically down the wrong path.

In case you didn’t know, rapper Antron Singleton (“Big Lurch”) is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his room mate, Tynisha Ysais, in 2002, whom he killed and ate. More of a tragedy for Ysais than for Singleton, you might conclude. The episode is a dubious highlight of “Rhymes & Misdemeanors”, one of several new Spotify-sponsored series.

Spotify is also chucking money at a 24-part series featuring “enigmatic artists” and an animated history of music by Drew Christie.

A popular Twitter feed collects examples of people accidentally sounding like Alan Partridge. It appears to have been the inspiration for many of the concepts Spotify is turning into real video. Savour, for example, the many Partridge-esque qualities of this gem:

Two hip-hop artists (one legend, one young buck) are picked up in a van during the height of LA rush hour. As they drive to an undisclosed location they must come up with a remix or mashup of one of their well-known tracks. Once done, they arrive at the downtown LA parking lot stage of Russell Simmon’s new company All-Def Digital, where they perform their new collaboration (as well as other songs) before a crowd of raucous super fans.

Genius. If you've been waiting all your life to see "Arm Wrestling with Chas n’Dave", don't give up hope. It could happen. Spotify could make it happen.

So. Please share your Partridge-inspired formats for "original music-related video programming" in the comments below and we'll send them to Spotify, which seems to be pretty desperate for ways of spending all that pre-IPO cash, so it doesn't get shared with labels or songwriters enhances the value of the Spotify brand.

Here's one to get you going:

"Kraptwork" A race against the clock pits the four members of Kraftwerk against a team of professional plumbers. Who can mend the most broken toilets and blocked drains?

Off you go, then. ®